Muddled Waters
Chapter 24
Captain Aung had never experienced a tropical cyclone, much less a hellacious typhoon before. Regardless, the terms were meaningless at the moment. Now he was in the middle of a severe, ferocious one and fighting for his ship’s life.
The Pearl was being buffeted by heavy waves and high winds to the point it was taking on water. All the ship’s pumps were working at full capacity, but hardly able to keep up with the incoming water. The boilers had earlier flooded and failed leaving the ship powerless and adrift like a small cork floating in a large pond. The vessel bounced about the ocean heaving back and forth of its own volition in a willy-nilly fashion. Some of the crew vomited, sickened by the random and sometimes violent motions, but continued to gamely man their stations. Aung put out a mayday distress call, although he didn’t expect any immediate assistance. He typically travelled outside the normal, shipping lanes as a matter of practice to cut down on fuel costs. Maybe this time he shouldn’t have cut those corners, he ruefully thought.
The Hyundai Tenacity, a huge, Panamax class container vessel, suddenly appeared on the horizon and Aung felt a pang of relief. He prayed the ship had changed course, responding to his earlier distress call and now coming to their aid. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
As the ships drew closer to one another, Aung could see through the binoculars the Tenacity was having problems of its own. The large number of containers stacked on its deck had become loose and a crane operator was desperately attempting to keep them in place, although one or more had fallen overboard by the look of things. Its captain was preoccupied with trying to maintain the ship’s equilibrium in the turbulent waters of the Bay of Bengal to save his cargo of brand-spanking new Elantra’s and Sonata’s being delivered to some distant port of call.
The Pearl was dwarfed by the sheer size and tonnage of the Tenacity. The Tenacity was an outsized, container vessel and the Pearl a small, outmoded freighter. Aung was alarmed as the distance between the vessels shortened. It seemed to the captain the two were on a collision course. He tried calling the other ship on his old CB radio without success. He sounded the ship’s air horn to warn of the danger fast approaching. He wondered if the Tenacity was having steering problems too since it wasn’t sailing its normal route of passage. Aung never had a chance to find out.
The ships approached each other and the air horns from both were sounding alarms in the darkness; a cacophonous duet of siren songs played to an indifferent night sky. The Tenacity struck the side of the Pearl’s hull causing a large gash in its side. As it did so, a number of containers fell to the Pearl’s foredeck creating more damage to its structural integrity. Aung sounded the alarm for all hands to abandon ship, but it was too late for him and his crew.
The Pearl of the Orient sank with all crew aboard. Captain Aung’s dreams of a better life sank at the same time. His last thought was about Kris Amar. He’d be mightily pissed off at him! Perhaps, like a good sea captain of yore and lore, he’d be better off going down with his ship rather than face Amar’s wrath.